The people were angry.
Not all of them, naturally, and not always at me, but anger had a way of spreading after tragedy. Grief needed somewhere to go, questions demanded answers, and when twelve thousand dead became twelve thousand names rather than a number on Agravain's reports, it was difficult to tell a mother that there had been a perfectly reasonable explanation for why her King had not been there when her child died.
There had been.
But that did not make her child any less dead.
For several days after the war ended, I had watched Albion begin the slow and painful process of deciding what exactly had happened to it.
The fighting was over, the dormant Sentinels were being recovered, the wounded were being treated, and reconstruction had already begun wherever there was something left to rebuild, but none of that answered the question that seemed to hang over everything.
How had this happened?
Or, perhaps more painfully:
How had this happened here?
Albion was supposed to be safe.
That had been one of the promises upon which I built it. Not a promise spoken aloud in some royal proclamation, perhaps, but one I had made through every action since taking these islands for myself.
Here, mutants did not need to fear the government coming for them.
Here, people did not need to choose between heating their homes and feeding their children.
Here, criminals learned to fear the law rather than ordinary people fearing criminals.
Here, monsters stayed outside.
Until they didn't.
The Sentinel War had broken something.
Not Albion itself. I did not think anything so simple could destroy what we had built here, but the certainty surrounding it had cracked.
People who had once looked toward Camelot and thought themselves untouchable had discovered that even a kingdom ruled by a god could bleed.
Some accepted that.
Others did not.
Agravain had provided me with reports on public sentiment after I asked for them, though I had very quickly discovered that reducing millions of grieving people to percentages was not especially useful.
Albion remained overwhelmingly stable. There had been no serious unrest, no mutinies, no great movement demanding the Crown be abolished, and the majority of people appeared to understand that my absence had not been caused by indifference.
I had been preventing an invasion from Hell.
It was difficult to construct a more legitimate excuse.
That did not mean everyone accepted it emotionally.
Some asked why Albion had been left without enough protection should I disappear.
Others asked why Asgard had waited until the end of the war before intervening, though that anger was mostly directed at Loki rather than me.
There were mutants asking why the Sentinels had ever been allowed to exist in the first place, humans asking why their homes had become battlefields because of a war originally aimed at mutants, and grieving families who cared very little whether the machine that killed their loved ones had originally been designed to hunt someone else.
Then there were those who simply blamed me.
I couldn't truly fault them for that.
A king accepted responsibility for her kingdom.
That responsibility did not disappear merely because the reasons for failure were understandable.
What interested me was not the anger itself.
It was how quickly some of it began to sound the same.
At first, Agravain assumed I was imagining things.
He stopped assuming that after the Veiled Hand produced its first report.
"The wording is not identical," he explained as we sat inside one of the smaller council chambers two days later, "but the arguments are being distributed through a remarkably consistent network. Several newspapers began questioning the Crown's ability to guarantee national security within twenty-four hours of one another. Three supposedly independent civic organizations have since begun using almost identical language concerning 'institutional dependence upon a single individual.'"
I looked down at the papers before me.
Individually, none of it was particularly interesting.
One article argued that Albion could no longer rely upon my personal strength as its primary deterrent.
I didn't agree with that, but I allowed such discussions all the same.
Another claimed the Sentinel crisis demonstrated the need for stronger civilian institutions capable of functioning independently of Camelot.
Also not an unreasonable argument; again, I didn't agree, but I understood the sentiment.
A third questioned whether concentrating political authority in an immortal monarch was sustainable when that monarch could vanish into another dimension without warning.
Rather rude.
Still not treason.
"I fail to see why the Veiled Hand cares," I said.
Agravain's mouth tightened slightly. "Because all three publications recently received financing from separate organizations that ultimately trace back to the same collection of foreign trusts."
Ah.
That was more interesting.
"And the civic organizations?"
"The same."
I leaned back.
"How clumsy."
"Not especially. It took considerable effort to establish the connections."
"That isn't what I meant."
Agravain understood.
Whoever was behind this had apparently forgotten that I had spent years waiting for them to do something interesting.
There were many people in Albion who disliked me.
That was hardly surprising.
I had taken an entire country apart and rebuilt it according to my own ideas. Even if the overwhelming majority benefited, there would inevitably be people who preferred the world as it had existed before.
Especially those who had benefited from it.
Bankers.
Property magnates.
Investment executives.
Old families whose fortunes had multiplied through systems I had dismantled almost immediately after taking power.
People who had once considered it perfectly natural that a man could own hundreds of homes while another slept beneath a bridge.
I had never expected them to love me.
Charles Whitmore certainly didn't.
I hadn't thought about him in some time.
That did not mean he had stopped thinking about me.
"Whitmore?" I asked.
Agravain nodded.
"Among others."
There it was.
Years ago, they had gathered in expensive rooms and complained about everything I had taken from them.
Their influence.
Their monopolies.
Their ability to use necessity itself as leverage against ordinary people.
They had watched rents freeze, evictions stop, private systems brought beneath Crown control, and fortunes that had once seemed untouchable suddenly become considerably less useful.
Naturally, they had plotted.
Naturally, I had known.
I was not particularly offended by either fact.
People were permitted to hate me.
They were even permitted to gather in private and complain about how wonderful life had been when they possessed more power than everyone around them.
For years, that was largely all they had done.
The Veiled Hand had watched them.
Listened.
Followed their money.
Placed people among their employees, their advisers, their accountants, and eventually even among those they trusted enough to invite into their private discussions.
I had learned a great deal.
I had simply never found sufficient reason to act.
Dislike was not a crime.
Neither was stupidity.
Apparently, however, patience had finally paid off.
-----
Charles Whitmore had waited years for Arthuria Pendragon to fail.
He would never have been foolish enough to describe it that way aloud.
Not anymore.
The first gatherings had been emotional things, filled with men and women who had lost fortunes, businesses, and influence almost overnight and had believed, with all the confidence of people accustomed to being obeyed, that the new order could not possibly last.
It had lasted.
Years passed.
Albion prospered.
The banks did not collapse in the manner they had predicted.
Ordinary people somehow continued working even after being given enough money to live comfortably.
Businesses continued operating despite employees gaining protections that would once have been dismissed as economically impossible, and, perhaps most offensively of all, the people seemed to like it.
Their predictions failed one after another.
Arthuria did not bankrupt the country.
She did not lose control.
She did not become an isolated tyrant hated by her subjects.
Each crisis merely seemed to strengthen her.
Until now.
Whitmore sat at the end of a polished table in a private residence far outside Camelot, listening as one of the younger men present summarized the latest polling figures.
"Support remains high," the man admitted, "but confidence in the Crown's ability to guarantee security has declined considerably. More importantly, the decline is strongest among families directly affected by the Sentinel attacks."
Whitmore lifted his glass but did not drink.
"Naturally."
Across the table, an elderly woman frowned. "Then we are accomplishing very little."
"We have been operating for less than a week."
"And she is already back."
"Which is irrelevant."
That earned several looks.
Whitmore placed the glass down.
"For years, our problem was never Arthuria Pendragon's popularity. Popularity changes. Our problem was certainty."
He let the word linger for a moment.
"The public believed she could not fail."
No one interrupted.
"They believed Albion could not be attacked because she would stop the attacker. They believed their economy could not collapse because she would repair it. They believed their enemies could not hurt them because somewhere, eventually, the King would appear."
Whitmore smiled faintly.
"The Sentinels have corrected that misconception for us."
One of the others shifted uncomfortably. "Twelve thousand people died."
"Yes."
The answer was colder than the room.
Whitmore noticed the reaction and sighed.
"I am not celebrating their deaths. I am explaining their consequences. We did not create the Sentinels. We did not send them here. We did not cause Arthuria to disappear for seven weeks. But those things happened, and pretending they did not would be every bit as foolish as pretending the opportunity does not exist."
There were reluctant nods around the table.
That was better.
None of them needed to enjoy what had happened.
They only needed to understand it.
"The argument must remain reasonable," Whitmore continued. "No attacks upon the dead. No absurd claims that Arthuria deliberately abandoned the country. No questioning whether Hell represented a genuine threat. Anyone attempting such nonsense will merely make us appear deranged."
"What, then?"
"We ask questions."
That was always more effective.
"Why was there no contingency for the King's disappearance? Why was so much military power permitted to leave Albion at once? Why did Asgard watch for seven weeks? Why does an entire modern nation depend so completely upon the presence of one woman?"
The woman across from him leaned forward.
"And from there?"
"Institutions."
Whitmore smiled.
"Accountability. Parliamentary oversight. Independent control of national finances. Restoration of private-sector participation where the Crown has accumulated excessive authority. No one wants the old world back."
That was a lie.
Most people around the table wanted precisely that.
They were simply intelligent enough not to say it.
"What people want," Whitmore continued, "is reassurance that this can never happen again. We merely need to ensure that the solution places power somewhere other than Camelot."
There it was.
The real objective.
Not the abolition of Arthuria.
That had long since become unrealistic.
She was immortal, absurdly powerful, beloved by much of the population, and unfortunately competent.
But even an immortal king did not need to control everything.
Power could be moved slowly.
A regulator here.
An independent board there.
A restored financial institution.
A privatized service.
A few laws ensuring the Crown could no longer simply interfere whenever it pleased.
The old system had not been built in a day.
Neither would it be restored in one.
"Then there is reconstruction," another man said.
Whitmore looked toward him.
"We have positions in several suppliers. Steel, cement, imported machinery. Demand will be enormous."
"Yes."
"We can restrict availability."
The room became quieter.
Not because anyone misunderstood.
That was considerably more dangerous than funding newspapers.
The man continued. "Nothing dramatic. Delays. Contracts that unexpectedly fall through. Foreign deliveries diverted elsewhere. Prices increase, projects slow, frustration grows. The Crown promised rapid reconstruction; it then finds itself unable to deliver."
The elderly woman frowned. "That hurts the people we're supposedly trying to convince."
"For a few months."
"And if someone dies because a hospital doesn't receive material?"
The man shrugged.
Whitmore agreed; it was slightly risky, but within allowable limits.
"Food?"
"No point; the King can always grow more. It would be a pointless waste of our resources."
"Fuel?"
"No, the Crown likely has enough. With Stark's reactors, it's not like we use much fossil fuel anymore, so again, pointless."
"Construction materials?"
Whitmore considered that.
"Nonessential projects first."
"And residential reconstruction?"
A pause.
Then he nodded.
"Carefully."
That was enough.
The discussion moved on.
Foreign financing.
Media partnerships.
Which grieving families might be willing to speak publicly.
Which demonstrations could be supported without making the financing visible.
Which officials might privately favor reducing Camelot's direct authority now that the consequences of depending upon Arthuria had become so obvious.
For nearly two hours, they discussed the future.
Not one of them noticed the servant who replaced their drinks twice.
Not one noticed that the woman's bracelet contained a transmitter.
Not one knew that one of Whitmore's own accountants had spent three years copying every document that crossed his desk.
And none of them knew that, several miles away, every word was being recorded.
(End of chapter)
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